The Bears on Hemlock Mountain

Newbery Honor Book, 1953

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Alice Dalgliesh

Dalgliesh is considered a pioneer in writing historical fiction for children and earned the 1955 Newbery Medal for The Courage of Sarah Noble. 

She taught elementary school for 17 years, wrote 40 novels for children as well as articles and book reviews for the Saturday Review and Parent's Magazine, and served as a children's book editor at Charles Scribner Sons for 26 years.

Dalgliesh is a writer of her time, and while There are Bears on Hemlock Mountain is clearly of its era, it has not received the cultural bias criticism accorded to The Courage of Sarah Noble. Perhaps the genesis of the book from a regional folk-tale provides a comfortable distance between today's family norms and those of bygone days.

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World Context

Childhood anxiety and fear of the unknown are on the rise during the pandemic -- loss of social time with a wide group of friends, home bound, school online, food insecurity and so many other problems are faced daily by our kiddos and their parents.

Jonathan's anxiety about bears on Hemlock Mountain is haunting him since there is a difference between what family members say and how they behave when he is sent over the hill for an iron pot. Meeting the bears results in Jonathan's fear which he responds to admirably, but I am struck by how his anxiety could have been reduced by adults speaking the truth -- kindly and appropriately for an 8-year-old -- about the likelihood of bears on the mountain. Our children are intuitive and sense when our words and reality do not align.

"The winter had been a cold one. Even now, in early spring, there was snow on the ground. The birds and squirrels and the rabbits had a hard time finding anything to eat, so every day Jonathan remembered to feed them. Jonathan loved animals and birds. He knew the tracks that each one made in the snow.

The small creatures could not find enough to eat, but it was not so with Jonathan's aunts and uncles and cousins. All they had to do was to come to the gray stone farmhouse and there was always plenty of food. Jonathan's mother was a fine cook and all the aunts, uncles, and cousins knew it. They liked to drop in for supper and to sit around the table in front of the big fireplace."

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Helen Sewell

Sewell spent the first years of her life if Japan and Guam; her father, Navy Lieutenant Commander Sewell, was the 6th Governor of Guam. She began attending Saturday classes at the Pratt Institute at the age of 12 until she could enroll full-time at 16.

Sewell began her career by illustrating Christmas greeting cards. She is best known as the original illustrator for Ingalls Wilder's Little House series.

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Synopsis

Based on a Pennsylvanian tall-tale or folk-tale, eight-year-old Jonathan walks over Hemlock Mountain to borrow a large iron pot from his Aunt. Too many cookies and too much milk make for a nice long nap and it is almost dark when he begins the return trip. Jonathan is nearly to the top of the mountain when he hears something he has not heard before - bears.

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Learning Connections

Interestingly most of the online resources for this novel have been created by Teachers and are for sale at TeachersPayTeachers.  I'm not comfortable suggesting you pay for a resource I have not vetted myself, but you can check them out on your own.

Science

• The Bears on Hemlock Mountain, A Unit on Mammals, Nancy Pollette Literary Guides (This text file is a bit odd looking, but each "box" is a separate lesson for the whole unit.)
• Magnificent Mammals, Pre-K - K, Scholastic

English

• Myths, Folktales and Fairy Tales for Grades K-3, 5-day Lesson Plan, Scholastic (This novel is not included, but the lessons can be adapted.)
• The Bears on Hemlock Mountain, Vocabulary & Comprehension, First Lesson, Zane-Blosser.com
  

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Ages: 5 - 9; Kindergarten - third grade; 64 pages. Jonathan hikes over the mountain and discovers bears on Hemlock Mountain.

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